Fortis protection grows as market roll out completed

Fortis’ protection business has continued its “good progress” in the first half of the year having completed its whole of market roll out.

The provider saw new annual protection premiums increase by two-thirds (65.6%) to £10.6m from £6.4m in the same period last year.

However, despite the growth, it lost £2m over the six months to July, although this was an improvement on the £4.3m deficit in first half of 2009.

Fortis now provides cover to over 90,000 customers (up from 63,000 customers at the end of 2009) and currently receives an average of more than 700 applications per day.

It also estimates it has a 5.1 per cent market share, having launched in July 2008.

The provider says its plans to rebrand to Ageas are on track and the process is expected to be complete by the first quarter of 2011.

Overall, it made a pre-tax profit of £8.4m in the first half, although the second quarter rebounded with an £11.6m profit (£3.2m loss in first quarter), but this was still down from a £26m profit over the same six months in 2009.

Commenting on the results, Barry Smith, chief executive of Fortis UK says: "I am pleased that Fortis has delivered a robust set of results despite the continuing difficult economic environment.

"Our income growth is strong, thanks to our multi-distribution strategy and we have demonstrated our aim to grow further with the acquisition of Kwik-Fit Insurance Services and continuing new business wins.

"Following a challenging first quarter for the whole industry, we are now seeing improvements in our profit and ratio performance and expect to see further improvement during the rest of the year," he adds.